I Love Yous Are for White People

April 1, 2009
In his debut, marketing consultant Su recalls growing up Vietnamese in the ghettos of America, and the cultural divide between two generations.

The riveting opening sets the stage as the family raced to a rickety boat to escape their homeland, dodging communist gunfire as they ran. The son of war refugees, the author came of age in the poor enclaves of Los Angeles with an emotional burden familiar to children of immigrants. Though he longed to succeed in America so that his parents' sacrifices were"not for nothing," he rebelled against his stifling upbringing. During the course of a dangerous adolescent descent, Su sought companionship with a Vietnamese street gang, neglected school and, for a time, disappointed his overbearing yet sympathetic father, an iron-willed man who jostled his way to wealth in Vietnam before the communists took over. Su's father emerges as the central force in his life. Together, they rummaged through dumpsters for shoes and other useable castaways. His first day at an American school was a special occasion, so his father forced him to wear a suit. When he was caught after stealing $500 from his mother's piggy bank, his father beat him and forced him to strip naked before locking him outside in order to shame him. He later revealed to his son the purpose of the bank: a college fund for Su and his siblings. Filled with emotive vignettes, the prose is sometimes forced, and the book doesn't demonstrate the bold vision of Andrew X. Pham's Catfish and Mandala (1999) or the grace of Andrew Lam's Perfume Dreams (2005). But Su offers a compelling narrative of immigrant life, cultural dissonance and the tug of familial obligation.

Uneven but memorable.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2009
Adult/High School-From the frightening exodus his family made from Vietnam in 1984 and through their resettlement and generation-specific acculturation in Southern California, Su offers excellent storytelling with keen psychological insight. While his mother cared for everyone as the family continued to grow, his father strove hard on both their behalf and in frustration at his son's apparent thickheadedness. The careful, almost timid five-year-old grew into a gang-affiliated and alienated teen. Nevertheless, and amid economic and emotional poverty, Su has become successful as a scholar, father, and writer. This memoir is an excellent companion to Le Thi Diem Thuy's novel in short stories, "The Gangster We Are All Looking For" (Knopf, 2003)."Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 11, 2009
In this moving first memoir, Su, vice president of marketing for a global think tank, recounts his family's escape from a difficult life in Vietnam for another in Los Angeles. Much of the City of Angels is the polar opposite of shimmering Hollywood-Su encounters abject poverty and gang culture. After looking for love in all the wrong places, he eventually establishes an identity in his adopted country. Anyone who wonders what obstacles an immigrant must overcome will be fascinated by this assimilation story; Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior complements it nicely.-Lynne Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.